…Gory, Disgusting, Hilarious, Heaven.
On a night when I was expecting to see one the most highly anticipated family movies of the year, Up, I was also expecting to leave the theater completely satisfied with another in a long line of Pixar successes that would leave me laughing heartily while giddy from the tickling of my inner child. Much to my chagrin (at the time), Up, was sold Out, and we were left wondering what to see. After much deliberation, and a little bit of beligerent name-calling, we opted to go check out the new Sam Raimi horror, Drag Me to Hell. This was, perhaps, the greatest “Plan B” of all time.
Drag Me to Hell tells the tale of a lovely bank employee (played adorably by Alison Lohman), fighting her way up the corporate bank ladder in hopes of obtaining a heavily contested position of Bank Assistant Manager. She attempts to make one of the “tough decisions” that will help her achieve her goal by telling an old woman (Lorna Raver in a disturbing and appalling turn) that she will not have her mortgage extended, but Raver places a curse on Lohman, and Sam Raimi takes over torturing his main character as only Sam Raimi can.
No other director, as far as I can tell, puts their protagonists through so many disgusting and painful situations. Lohman’s character endures more physical, moral, and psychological turmoil than I’ve seen in ages. And, since this is a Sam Raimi movie, a lot of these incidents include some sort of foreign substance or material that really shouldn’t ever go into someone’s mouth, not to mention the greatest fight-scene featuring an 80-year-old woman EVER. Raimi is in full-on gross-out mode here, but he always presents this with his dark and twisted sense of humour that keeps the audience laughing so much that they don’t have the chance to gag at what they just witnessed.
Seriously though, Drag Me to Hell has been mis-marketed. I don’t even know if that’s a word, but roll with me on this one. The commercials give DMTH the appearance of a serious and creepy horror movie from the director of Spider-Man. This gives the impression that the audience is going to be wowed with explosive action and special effects. What it is, in fact, is a wry, hilarious yuck-fest with some good jumps in it to keep the audience members on the edge of their seats. This is Sam Raimi in a return to Evil Dead form.
It’s gory. It’s alarming. It’s blatant in every way. It’s glorious. I can honestly say that this is one of the few times that I went home completely satisfied with what I had just watched, which is what I thought was going to happen anyway. I just didn’t expect it would be after viewing that many maggots.
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